It is never too late to start getting healthy. The elastic band that isn’t stretched dries up and breaks. Are you gearing up to start getting healthy a few months from now, when you have more time? Don’t!
Don’t Wait For The Pain
This is how some of you think: ‘I’ll wait until I need it.’ By need it you most certainly mean when the pain gets bad enough you’ll do something about it. Let’s apply the same logic to your car. Do you put a piece of tape over the oil light so you don’t have to think about it for a while? Seems crazy, right? But that is what you do with your bodies.
You take pills to mask the pain and you wait and wait and wait. When you finally can’t stand it anymore, you go to your doctor or chiropractor and wonder why it takes so long to get well. By the time your pain begins, many of your problems will have already become chronic and are more difficult to address and treat.
What Is Pain?
The next time you have pain, remember that pain isn’t bad. Your pain is simply the activation of specialised nerves that respond to changes in your environment. When you put your hand near something hot, your nerves for temperature fire off, sending a message to the brain which then has you move your hand away from the potential danger. Good right?
Similarly, you want to understand what your body is saying when it has pain. The last thing you want to do is suppress your pain – in a sense, shutting your body up. What is your headache saying? Drink water, take a break, feed me? Get interested!
Lower Your Pain Threshold
There is increasing evidence to suggest that medicating your pain, lowers your pain threshold over time. In the past, it took a half aspirin to dull your headache and now six tablets a day barely touch it.
Healthy Tips
To lower your pain threshold, try these healthy tips:
Listen to your pain and other body signals. If you are hungry eat; stiff – get up and move around; tired – go to bed early and don’t just watch one more episode.
Start to break the pill-popping habit. Be with your pain; get interested in what your body is actually saying.
Distract your pain. Rub the sore spot, do a puzzle or dust off that old hula-hoop.
When you first begin the process of lowering your pain threshold, it will be challenging. If you are used to reaching for the painkillers, your brain will scream at you to take them. You may even hear yourself saying, “I tried for a while but I had to take something.” You rarely have to do anything, unless someone is forcing a pill down your throat.
It takes about a month before the pill habit becomes an un-habit and eventually you won’t even think about taking something, you will naturally ask yourself what your body really needs.
Paula is a self-confessed posture addict. She is the creator of a popular video blog on posture which has received over one million youtube views. Her latest book, The Posture Doctor has just been released.
Website (www.posturevideos.com)
Twitter (@thatpaulamoore)
Facebook (posturedoctor)